WordPress News Report: iPhone, Widgets API, WordCamps in Hong Kong and China, International WordPress.tv

This week’s Blog Herald WordPress News is WordPress News: iPhones Up, WordPress Widgets API, 2.8 Delayed, International WordPress.tv, and More, and I’ve covered a lot of WordPress news you can use:

iPhone for WordPress is in the iTunes store. WordPress Widgets will use new Widgets API as of WordPress 2.8. Security authentication will improve with OAuth in future versions. WordPress 2.8 delayed. WordCamps in Hong Kong and China coming up. International languages embraced on WordPress.tv. And more WordPress news, tips, resources, and help.

If you missed last week’s edition on the Blog Herald, it was WordPress News: Plugins Reach Milestone, New WordPress Community Project, Help to Search for WordPress Help.

I am working with the editor of the Blog Herald to change the look and style of the Blog Herald WordPress News. I’d love your input here or on the announcement regarding potential changes and input. The Blog Herald WordPress News is designed to meet the needs of the WordPress Community, so help us help you blog better with WordPress.

Here are some highlights for this week you do not want to miss, followed by WordPress Events, WordCamps, and Meetups coming soon.

iPhone for WordPress

The iPhone for WordPress Version 1.2 is now in the iTunes App Store, ready for you to blog and track comments on your iPhone.

WordPress 2.8 News

The WordPress Development team has confirmed that WordPress 2.8 will be released in April, pushing back the release date a few weeks in order to take a little more time with improving the underlying code, incorporating the new Widgets API, and improvements for managing JavaScripts, Plugins, AJAX, and more.

There is a list of features, changes, and improvements in the WordPress Codex.

A new WordPress Widgets API in in development for WordPress 2.8. Based upon MultiWidget Class, it will handle all the multi-widget functions and hooks to implement a multi-widget Plugin, giving developers an easier process to extend their WordPress Plugins with Widget functionality.

The WordPress Development team has announced that they are converting all default WordPress Widgets to work with the new Widgets API. If you are a WordPress Plugin author with a Widget-enabled Plugin, or you want to expand the flexibility of your Plugin for WordPress 2.8, check this out.

Lester Chan covers the new WP_Widget Class in WordPress 2.8 in greater detail to help Plugin authors understand how it works and how it can help them.

There will be a lot of changes under the hood, but not so much on the surface in WordPress 2.8. If you are working with WordPress Themes, Plugins, or development, articles on WordPress 2.8 news you should be aware of include:

• Optimizing Script Loading
• Optimizing script loading part 2
• Optimizing script loading, implementation
• Preparing for WordPress 2.8: Using JavaScript in WordPress Plugins
• Change your WordPress Theme on …
• WordPress 2.8 body_class, automatic_feed_links
• What a body!

Will Norris wrote about “Authentication in WordPress 2.8” as part of his ongoing project for the OpenID WordPress Plugin. Working with Peter Westwood, WordPress 2.8 now includes a new filter for authentication that passes through three paramters, along with the username and password. According to Matt Mullenweg, right now, the OAuth for WordPress will be a WordPress Plugin, with hopes of integrating it into the core in the future.

WordPress.tv Goes International and Offers Insider News

WordPress.tv has now launched the Making WordPress.tv development blog run on the new P2 WordPress Theme for those who want to keep up with what is going on with the new video service for the WordPress Community.

The first goal for improving the new WordPress.tv is to improve the localization, the ability to understand the videos in your language. Michael Pick is working on adding language filtering to help with the translation of videos into other languages. You can now filter the videos by language preference, too.

If you would like to help, let them know.

WordPress Tips and Plugins on Twitter

I’ve started sharing WordPress Tips and Plugin suggestions I’ve collected over the past couple years on Twitter at @lorelleonwp.

I post one WordPress tip and one WordPress Plugin link every morning (PST) covering recent versions of WordPress and WordPress usages and features.

Thanks and credit for making this happen goes to TweetLater, a future Twitter posting and management system I reviewed recently.

 

WordPress Events and WordCamps

Upcoming WordCamps and WordPress events include:

March 2009

• Utah WordPress Meetup – March 18, 2009
• Las Vegas WordPress Meetup – March 19, 2009
• Ferndale, Michigan – March WordPress Meetup – March 23, 2009
• Atlanta, Georgia – Atlanta WordPress Users Group – March 24, 2009
• New York City WordPress Meetup – The Wonderful World of Widgets – March 24, 2009
• Seattle WordPress Meetup – March 24, 2009
• Las Vegas WordPress Meetup – Thursday, March 26, 2009
• The Dallas/Ft. Worth Area WordPress March Meetup – March 28, 2009
• The Chicago WordPress March Meetup – WordPress Plugins – March 28, 2009
• Atlanta, Georgia – Atlanta WordPress Users Group Meetup – March 28, 2009
• North Carolina – Greater Charlotte Area WordPress Group March Meetup – March 28, 2009
• Alameda, California – The East Bay WordPress March Mash-up – March 29, 2009

April 2009

• The New Jersey WordPress April Meetup – April 1, 2009
• Las Vegas WordPress Meetup – April 1, 2009
• New Jersey WordPress Meetup – April 1, 2009
• Gulf Coast WordPress/Blogger April Meetup – April 2, 2009
• WordCamp China – April 4, 2009
• WordCamp Hong Kong – April 5, 2009
• Ft. Lauderdale, Florida – South Florida WordPress April Meetup – April 8, 2009
• New Orleans, Louisiana – WordCamp NOLA – April 10-11, 2008 (Twitter)
• Long Beach, California – Southern California WordPress Group – April 18, 2009

May 2009

• Chicago – Successful and Outstanding Bloggers Conference (SOBCon) – May 1-5, 2009
• WordCamp Toronto – May 8-10, 2009
• Richmond, Virginia – WordCamp RVA – May 9, 2009
• Ohio – WordCamp Columbus – May 16, 2009
• Washington, D.C., Baltimore and Philadelphia – WordCamp Mid-Atlantic – May 16, 2009
• Milan, Italy – WordCamp Milan 2009 – May 22-23, 2009
• WordCamp San Francisco 2009 – May 30, 2009

Past WordPress News Reports

• WordPress News: Plugins Reach Milestone, New WordPress Community Project, Help to Search for WordPress Help
• WordPress News: WordPress Wins at Irish Blogger Awards, WordPress Events Everywhere, WordPress for PowerPoint, Flash Security Issue, Feedburner Deadline
• WordPress News: Can You Spot a WordPress Blog? WordPress 2.8 News, Plugin Directory Searcable, iPhone App Tested, and More
• WordPress News: Release Week News, WordPress 2.7.1, BuddyPress, WordPress MU, and More Releases
• WordPress News: Logogate, WordCamps Everywhere, WordPress.tv, BuddyPress, WordPressMU, WordPress Plugin Podcast, and More
• WordPress News: WordPress.tv, WordCamp Whistler, WordPress Logo, City Saves Money, and More

Each week, the Blog Herald features WordPress News, a weekly column by Lorelle VanFossen of Lorelle on WordPress featuring the news around the WordPress Community. If you have a WordPress news item or tip to suggest, please contact her at this special email address: lorelleonwordpress@gmail.com

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Copyright Lorelle VanFossen, the author of Blogging Tips, What Bloggers Won't Tell You About Blogging.